"Hurricane Sandy blew the U.S. presidential race off course on Sunday even before it came ashore, forcing Republican Mitt Romney to shift his campaign inland and fueling fears that the massive storm bearing down on the East Coast could disrupt an election that is already under way."

"A he juggled his governing duties with his re-election effort, President Barack Obama said the heavily populated East Coast could face power failures and other disruptions for several days.

"Don't anticipate that just because the immediate storm has passed that we're not going to have some potential problems in a lot of these communities going forward through the week," Obama said after a visit to the federal government's storm-response center.

Romney rerouted his campaign from Virginia to join his vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan in Ohio, one of the handful of battleground states that will decide the outcome of the November 6 election."